The only disappointment for Swansea City is that the season has come to an end. They finished the campaign with a flourish, winning four of their last five matches to climb up to 15th place, and it is tempting to wonder how much better the final table could have looked if Paul Clement had been in charge from day one.

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Swansea have collected 29 points from 19 games since Clement’s appointment at the start of the year, which is a remarkable return considering the mess that the Welsh club were in at the time – anchored to the foot of the table with only 12 points on the board.

Clement hopes that turnaround will now help to convince Swansea’s most influential players their future lies at the Liberty Stadium as he seeks to keep hold of Gylfi Sigurdsson and Fernando Llorente, both of whom were central figures in this win. It was Sigurdsson’s free-kick that Llorente headed across goal for Jordan Ayew to nod home to equalise after Jonny Evans had put Albion ahead in the first half. Llorente then delivered the decisive blow when he scored his 15th goal of the season with a close-range volley from Luciano Narsingh’s centre four minutes from time.

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“There are so many positives,” Clement said. “Four wins out of five, we broke the 41-point barrier and, from the situation I came in at with the club bottom in the league, to finish 15th is very, very pleasing. The potential of this current squad as it is can get even better. We want to keep our best players and strengthen, not get weaker. We’re not a club that needs to sell.

“I look forward to meeting the owners in the next 24-48 hours to discuss how they think we’ve done and what needs to be done moving forwards.”

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Tony Pulis is heading to China for a similar sort of meeting with Guochuan Lai, the Albion owner. Although Pulis described finishing in 10th place as a fantastic achievement, given Albion’s squad size and budget, the Welshman was disappointed that their season petered out. Albion lost seven of their last eight matches, failing to pick up another win after beating Arsenal in March. “The final games of the season have highlighted we need to be better at both ends of the pitch,” said Pulis, who confirmed he would be making that exact point to Albion’s owner as he makes a case for transfer targets.

“The opportunities when we were in control of the game are there to be taken. And their first goal is a third-division goal. Sigurdsson has got great quality but our marking is absolutely shocking.”